March 2018 – Institute Alternative

28. 03. 2018.07. 05. 2020.

Corporate Governance in Western Balkans: Far from Good

Need to strengthen competence in managing the internal audit of public companies in the Western Balkans was highlighted at a regional conference “How to Improve Good Governance of State Owned Companies?” on 26 March 2018, in Sarajevo.

The regional conference was organised by Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The event brought together representatives of public enterprises and institutions in the Western Balkans, as well as Croatia and Turkey, civil society organisations and parliamentary institutions in the region.

The participants of the conference talked about the issues of the shortcomings of the existing legal framework in their countries, management in public enterprises, openness to the public in business operations of public enterprises, fight against nepotism and corruption, over and uncontrolled employment (which is especially characteristic of public companies in Serbia, companies abuse temporary and occasional business contracts on for this purpose), but also about consumer rights and the quality of services these companies provide to citizens.

The conference emphasised the need to adopt plans for integrating public companies as mechanisms to combat corruption. As a particularly burdensome problem, participants identified an excessive number of employees in public companies.

This issue is also characteristic for Montenegro and was highlighted in the March 2018 preliminary findings of employees of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Montenegro. In addition, by reducing the number of employees, it is necessary to reduce the wages in the public sector, which includes public companies, and to introduce stricter employment controls, the IMF recommended. The framework for public-private partnerships should be strengthened in order to ensure that public companies do not impose budget outflows, ie, that they do not result in public sector obligations.

The conference presented a summary of a study conducted by Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina entitled “Good Governance in Public Enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina – An Analysis of the Transparency, Accountability and Integrity of Public Enterprises”.

According to the findings of this organisation, citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina still don’t have enough information on how public companies operate. Public companies mostly don’t have their own website, so communication with the public is difficult. “Generally, transparency regarding organisational structure, information of the overall operations of public enterprises, ownership and management structures is at a very low level,” is one of the conclusions of the analysis. On the other hand, when it comes to accountability – clientelism, nepotism, great political influence and lack of professionalism are characteristic of the management of public companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

Ivana Bogojević,

Public Policy Researcher

27. 03. 2018.24. 04. 2018.

Insufficient Citizens’ Participation in Policy Planning Process

Local self-governments in Montenegro reduce strategic planning to a wish list without measurable results, and citizens’ participation in the policy-making process is almost completely disregarded, as concluded at the panel discussion “Governance for Results in Local Self-Governments”

Our researcher, Aleksandra Vavić, participated at the closing event of the Center for Democratic Transition, which was organized in the framework of the same project through grant program provided by the regional WeBER project, and implemented by six research centers in the Western Balkans, including Institute Alternative.

The Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) project “Governance for Results in Local Self-Governments” aims at enhancing transparency, accountability and efficiency of two local self-governments – Kotor and Nikšić, through increased citizens’ participation in policy making affecting them directly and in controlling its implementation.

The research showed that citizens are not sufficiently involved in the policy planning process at the local level. This is also confirmed by the results of the public opinion survey conducted by IPSOS agency for the needs of Institute Alternative, within the framework of the project “Civil Society for Good Governance: To Act and Account!”. The results showed that 60% of Montenegrin citizens are not at all informed about public consultations, which represent one of the basic forms of civic participation. About 34% heard of at least one public consultation, and out of those, only 2% participated in it.

“We know that the situation is not good at the central level or at the local level, but the poor situation at the local level should maybe worry us more as it concerns public policies at the decision-making level closer to us physically. At this level of democracy, a real, direct dialogue between citizens, civil society and political representatives is created and maintained,” said Aleksandra.

She also reminded that the Government of Montenegro set as the main objective of the Strategy for the Public Administration Reform establishment of administration characterized by growth of citizens’ trust.

But the trust is not growing at all. Citizens of Montenegro generally have no trust in state or local administration. Data from the above-mentioned survey show that only 12% of citizens have great trust in state administration, while slightly more, 13% of citizens have great trust in local self-government.

“Tendency to not consult citizens on topics of crucial importance is a reflection of undemocratic work of the administration, which is completely contrary to good governance practices. If the government “does not listen” to the citizens and if this is constantly repeated, a vicious circle is made which leads to alienated institutions and decline of trust in the administration, “she added.

The possibilities are enormous, and the administration cannot consider sufficient to publish a public call on its web site or in one of the newspapers with low readership. Administration, whether state or local, is the one that has the resources and capacity to involve citizens in the decision-making process, ranging from discussions in local communities and broad consultations to targeted use of information technologies.

IA Team

27. 03. 2018.04. 04. 2018.

Ministry of Culture violates the Government Regulation and continues Clash with Unsuitable NGO activitists

We call upon Ministry of Culture to publish the Decision on appointment of representative of NGO in the working group for Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on National Public Broadcaster Radio and Television of Montenegro. Ministry should have published this decision more than 15 days ago, and the working group for drafting this regulation held its first meeting already last week.

Candidates of NGO for membership in the working group were Kristina Cetkovic and Goran Djurovic. On 2 March, Ministry of Culture has published a List of candidates of NGO for membership in the working group, and a group of non-governmental organisation requested the Ministry to annul the list and repeat the procedure of selection of representatives of NGO on the basis of submitted candidacies.

Ministry ignored this call and continued the process of development of the Draft Law with no participation of NGO who fulfil conditions prescribed by the Government Regulation on manner and procedure of exercising the cooperation of the state administration organs and NGO. Namely, the Regulation, in Art. 11 clearly states that:

‘Candidate of a non-governmental organisation for member of the working body may be a person who:

– is Montenegrin citizen, with residence in Montenegro;
– possesses experience in relation to the task of the working body;
– is not a member of organs of political party, civil servant, state official, or employee.’

We are not familiar that Kristina Cetkovic has, in public appearances or in her activities, dealt with amendments to the Law on National Public Broadcaster, or that she was giving suggestions and proposed amendments to this regulation. On the other hand, candidate whom we have proposed, Goran Djurovic, has participated in previous working groups with the same task formed by Ministry of Culture and has been proposing concrete amendments to this regulation and other laws from the media area for years, of which there is record in reports and documents in possession of the Ministry of Culture. Only if a candidate fulfils the previous condition, i.e. possesses experience in relation to the task of working body, it is possible to count the support of NGOs which, also, should fulfil conditions prescribed by the Article 10 of the Regulation.

Our objective is for the process of amending the law to be conducted on as better and more quality level as possible. Thus, we believe that there can be no one’s interest for working group to be one more in a series of formal bodies, without substantial influence on the process of development of the Law. A quality representative of NGO should contribute to the substantial role of the Working Group, who is proposed to membership of this body by organisations engaged in the area of media regulations’ reform.

Simultaneously, while the Ministry of Culture is violating this Government’s Regulation, the Ministry of Public Administration is calling upon NGOs to give their suggestions and comments for improvement of provisions in this regulation. We convey to the Government and Ministry of Public Administration that consultations on amendments of regulations have no sense when the existing regulations are being violated by ministries themselves. It is clear that consultations with NGOs are being used as expression of alleged will for cooperation, while in the practice the decisions about the representatives of NGO are not made in line with the law and regulation, but apparently by will of ministers and his associates.

We invite the Ministry of Culture to publish the decision on appointment of representatives of NGO for member of working group for amendments to the Law on RTCG so that, due to obvious violation of this regulation on all aforementioned grounds, we could initiate the proceedings before the Administrative Court.

Daliborka Uljarevic, Centre for Civic Education (CCE)
Ana Novakovic, Centre for Development of Non-Governmental Organisations (CDNGO)
Milka Tadic Mijovic, Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIJ MNE)
Ivana Vujovic, NGO Juventas
Zlatko Vujovic, Centre for Monitoring and Research (CEMI)
Ruzdija Strujic, NGO Bonum
Milena Stanojevic, NGO Active Zone
Mustafa Canka, Ul Info
Stevo Muk, Institute Alternative
Zeljko Djukic, Multimedijal Montenegro

26. 03. 2018.27. 04. 2018.

The new law on administrative procedures: long-lasting goodbye to the service counter

The study analyses the expected benefits of the new Law on Administrative Procedures (LAP). Some of the novelties it brings are appointments of duly authorized officials for the implementation of administrative procedures as well as the official duty to exchange information. For these to be implemented, however, a number of further conditions have to be met.

Our analysis of 11 ministerial guidelines that have been discussed in Government meetings in the course of 2017 in order to align them with the LAP shows an uneven trend of implementation of the rule to appoint a duly authorized official for decisions concerning the general administrative procedure. Six ministries have implemented the rule in its entirety, while the other five only delegate the administrative procedure to appointed officials, leaving the decision-making powers to the management. In addition to making the procedure less efficient and increasing the burden on the top management, this approach also adds to the politicization of the procedure. According to the information we collected from almost 40 local administrative bodies, the same trend is evident at the local government level.

The official duty to exchange information is introduced as a principle, with the objective of relieving the citizens of the obligation to collect a pile of papers before they can access a public service. The risk is that it may remain but a good intention, especially as the gap between various public registries has been very difficult to bridge. At the moment, public administration bodies are in charge of 153 different electronic registers, but there is no unified record of all registers managed by the public administration.

All electronic registers should be integrated by 2020. However, there is no indication of a strategic intention to digitalize registers that remain available only in the paper format. Although comparative practice suggests that central guidelines for due information exchange would be required, the Government has failed to adopt a binding guideline for public administrative bodies to which the obligation applies.

Public administration bodies should make more use of the possibility to appoint officials duly authorized to make decisions in general administrative procedures. The Government should adopt binding guidelines on due exchange of information and facilitate effective exchange of information between the bulk of registries managed by public administration bodies.

22. 03. 2018.04. 04. 2018.

Workshop: Towards Sustainable Monitoring of the Public Administration Reform

21. 03. 2018.24. 04. 2018.

DPS continues with an offensive against independency of RTCG

Today’s dismissal of PhD Vladimir Pavicevic and election of Ivan Jovetic for new president of the Council of RTCG, represents a continuation of political offensive of Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) against independency of public broadcaster RTCG.

At the new session with participation of new members of the Council of RTCG, Ivan Jovetic and Goran Sekulovic, a party mission was implemented and a former member of Commission of DPS for international cooperation, European and Euro-Atlantic integration was brought to the head of the public service. By this, a second phase of overtaking of RTCG was done, which has started by dismissal of unsuitable members of the Council Nikola Vukcevic and Goran Djurovic, and by bringing party associates Pajovic, Jovetic and Sekulovic.

DPS is firm in the intention to bring even this institution which has started to show signs of autonomy back under its control. Not even the well-intentioned calls of governments of countries partners of Montenegro, multiple times stated via public and diplomatic channels, have not borne fruit, and DPS has, as we have announced, decided to realise its notion until the end.

We express concern that the process of overtaking of RTCG will be brought to the end by dismissal of the Director General Andrijana Kadija and Director of Television Vladan Micunovic.

Instead of expanding media freedom and strengthening independency of public service, the Montenegrin authorities are clearly showing by this that they do not wish to democratise the society, and that there is no doubt that they wish to slow down the accession negotiation process.

Ana Novakovic, Executive Director, Center for Development of Non-Governmental Organisations (CDNGO)
Daliborka Uljarevic, Executive Director, Centre for Civic Education (CCE)
Stevo Muk, President of the MB, Institute Alternative (IA)
Zlatko Vujovic, President of the MB, Center for Monitoring and Research (CEMI)